


The Power Of Books

by Thunderbird83



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Different Worlds, Dimension Travel, F/M, Fortress, Gen, Island - Freeform, Mystery, Ship, Weather, myst - Freeform, teleporting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23447008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderbird83/pseuds/Thunderbird83
Summary: A crossover with MYST the original game back in the early nineties. Not really plot heavy; my version of a walkthrough but spiced it up just a little bit. Had this in my files for ages and am only just now deciding to post it. Enjoy, everyone!
Relationships: John Deacon/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	The Power Of Books

The Power Of Books

A Queen/Myst crossover. Liz finds Brian, Roger, Freddie, John and their friend Ben in the strange age of Myst. With Ben as the first one she finds, he assists her in deciphering the cryptic codes and rescues everyone. Goes without saying that this gives a lot of the game away!

Note that while I love the game, all the original characters like Atrus have been changed. It’s the ages of Myst without any other characters other than Liz, Ben, and Queen. 

Roger pulled up in the driveway, cut the engine and then climbed out of the van, stretching with a groan as the others got out and began pulling down their gear. Liz, wearing a flower print bikini top and black shorts, pulled her duffel bag out of the rear of the van. She surveyed the house, noting with appreciation all the improvements that she’d wanted made had been done. 

“Instead of looking so forbidding and deserted it’s a great modernized structure now,” Freddie narrated as he walked beside her. “the tan paint job really works a treat, doesn’t it? Like I told you!” 

“Oh shut up, Mother Mercury! By god you really do cluck like a mother hen sometimes!” Liz teased him. Roger and John brought up the rear, both wearing big smiles on their faces as the sun shone high in the sky. The Andrews place really did look different; instead of its old dark gray paint job, cracked ceiling tiles and overgrown gardens the place had a light tan coat of paint to make it look fresher, the roof had been mended, and Liz had hired a reputable gardener to tame the jungle. 

The entire garden had been leveled out; bunches of low maintenance plants like ground cover geraniums, primroses, poppies and marigolds dotted the landscape. Right near the back porch pink and white tiger lilies wore their colors proudly as they reached up to the sun. 

“Wow! This place looks so different!” Brian remarked as Liz fit the key in the lock and opened up the door. John and Roger brought in the grocery bags and started to stock the fridge. “Whatever happened to the snake?”

“He found a good home.” 

“Ben take him?”

“Yep. He wanted to teach his kids that pet owning wasn’t limited to just cats, dogs, rabbits, etc. He will be here soon with his kids so we can all go swimming.” 

“This is going to be interesting. Freddie’s the biggest kid that we have,” John pulled Liz into a front to back hug with his lips on her neck. “he can’t compete with real kids.” 

“We shall see. Same room arrangements as last time?” 

“Actually the contractor I hired discovered a door into two more rooms. It looks like Charlie didn’t even know about them so they needed a lot of rebuilding,” Liz showed John the door off the staircase upstairs. “we didn’t notice it because there was an ugly painting over it.” 

“So how many rooms does it make now?” 

“Four, doofus. Didn’t I just say it?” she mocked playfully, tossing her duffel bag onto the master bedroom’s queen sized bed. The medic opted to keep the beach look that Charlie had designed; she also didn’t bother to change the other room’s theme either. 

John joined his girlfriend in looking out the small gabled window with his arm around her waist. He drew her closer to him, brushing his hand against her stomach. The action made Liz remember what had happened to her the last time they were there and she flinched, drawing John’s hand down a little bit. 

“Are you OK, sweetie?” 

“I’m fine. I just remembered what happened to me last time we were here.” 

“Oh I see. Well, let me toss a question out for you while I have you alone here.” 

“What is it, cutie?” 

“Do you ever think of us having kids someday?” 

Liz sighed. “I’ve been traumatized in that way already, John..” memories of the encounter with the demon made her shudder. John kissed her cheek affectionately, wisely choosing to drop the subject. The medic mumbled thanks to him, turning away from the window, assaulted in her mind by the memory of her being inseminated by a demonic force. 

“There you two are!” Roger pulled off his sunglasses and clipped them to his shirt. “Ben’s on his way with his kids. We’re heading to the beach!” 

A horn honk in the driveway sounded. Ben and his kids had arrived. 

**

The band, Ben and his family spent several memorable hours at the beach with Liz insisting that everyone reapply sunscreen every two hours to avoid burns, ever the medic that she was. While Roger and Freddie entertained the kids in the water, Brian and Ben chatted for awhile, Liz and John made out a little bit on the side. Brian brought his acoustic guitar and before long everyone was singing Love Of My Life with gusto. 

During a lull in the activity, John passed his hand over Liz’s belly, telling her that he liked Ben’s kids. She did not need to guess what he was hinting at and merely shrugged. The medic wasn’t fond of children and after her last experience at the house she wasn’t eager to get pregnant and go through that kind of hell. John knew what she was thinking and decided not to press it; those sort of major life decisions took time. 

At the same time the bassist wasn’t completely recovered from his experiences at the house either. John still had occasional nightmares of Liz in the demon’s grasp. His attention was diverted from his inward musings by the kids and Roger splashing out of the water and announcing that they were hungry for lunch. 

A picnic lunch was served and as the sun was going down everyone gravitated towards Roger’s battered van and they made their way back to the estate. Freddie peeked out the window as they drove, making funny remarks and inventing stories about the homes that they passed by on the way. 

“Well, excuse me but I need to get these two back to their mom.” Ben told them as he stepped out of the van. Liz, though she tolerated kids well, was happy to see them pile into the car. The medic waved a polite goodbye and that was it for her. Her lack of enthusiasm for children was not noticed; the others made up for it in spades. 

“Come back and stay with us!” Freddie invited happily. “You’d be more than welcome!” 

“I’d be glad to!” Ben’s smile lit up his face gratefully. Roger and Brian exchanged a look; both thinking that the real estate agent led a lonely life and never got a chance to really hang out and unwind with other adults. Freddie sensed this as well; smiling as Ben hustled his kids and their gear into their car and took off. 

“Yuck, I need a shower and a little quiet time,” Liz took off her sun hat as she walked inside. “mind if I take off my bikini top in front of everyone?” 

“Go right ahead!” Roger and Brian encouraged. The medic laughed, beckoning to John who followed her upstairs and walked into the bedroom. John followed his girlfriend’s motions lustily, rewarded when she flung her bikini top at him. Both of them took a long shower together, mostly erotically making out and washing each other. 

“I had an improvement made in the grounds,” after the shower John was drying Liz’s hair as she stood in front of the window. “see that little fenced in area over there?”

“Yes.” she showed him a key. 

“I had that transformed into our little love garden. There’s an in ground hot tub with lots of gardens and four columns that have a ceiling and hanging plants. Very erotic and sexy. It’s like fucking in the Roman times.” 

“Oh, I like this very much.” he kissed her neck. “Freddie and Brian are making supper downstairs.” 

“Let’s go then.” 

With Ben in their midst the band and the medic enjoyed a summer evening in front of a bonfire(Brian insisting they check for hedgehogs first), and roasted marshmallows. Liz showed them how to make s’mores, Brian brought out the guitar again, Roger tapped out a beat out of whatever he could find, and John snuggled up with Liz. Freddie began telling dirty jokes to Ben until he blushed, then let loose with a loud belly laugh. The singer’s mission was complete; the real estate agent had finally let all his guards down and really relaxed. 

The next day dawned gray and drizzly so all outside expeditions planned were postponed for the next day. Liz was perusing her bookshelf and had just touched a volume of the classics when she heard a strange noise drift to her ear. It sounded like someone was calling her name. 

“The hell?” she knew that she was overtired from the stress of touring life, but she thought she had recovered pretty well. They had been at the estate for less than 24 hours and the thought crossed Liz’s mind that the paranormal or supernatural force hadn’t completely left it since last time. “I must be more tired than I thought!” the medic rifled through the books again, thinking that she would engross herself in a volume of Poe when a book fell off the shelf. 

“I’ve never seen this book before,” it was white with a heavy cloth binding on the spine and corners. “what is this?” Liz opened up the book and was surprised to see that there was no words whatsoever but only a black ink stain in the shape of a rectangle on the page. “Someone ruined a perfectly good book!” 

As she watched the image seemed to come alive and spin into an overview directly above an island property. “Is that a spaceship? A giant gear? What?”

“Liz!” a ghostly voice seemed to echo a little bit. The overview settled down into a view of a lake or ocean with a sunken mast rising out. Ahead was a wooden dock, some platform with a handle on top, and concrete stairs. Another set of stairs reached a giant gear in the distance, there was also a rocky precipice and a building made out of granite. 

“Someone calling me?”

“Liz! I hope you can hear me!” Ben’s face loomed into view as Liz yelped and jumped back. “I don’t know how I got here! Help me!” 

“Well, if it will help my friend!” Liz didn’t know how to enter into wherever it was Ben had been trapped in but she reached over to pluck a piece of dust off the page when her fingertips grazed the image of Ben. The medic had an overwhelming desire to close her eyes as her fingertips left the page and she had a sensation that she was falling. 

**  
“What is that?” Ben heard the wind rushing by off the water and a blue glow illuminated one part of the dock. As he watched he saw the blue light take the shape of a person for a few seconds and then one materialized, taking on a highly recognizable form. Liz was lying there but to Ben she was the most beautiful sight in the world; meaning that he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Thank god you’re here!” footsteps rushed to where Liz was and she vaguely felt someone touch her face. “Liz, wake up!” it took a few minutes for her to respond to him but Ben smiled in relief as Liz groaned softly while her eyelids opened up a little bit. “Hey,” he greeted her. “how are you feeling?”

“Ugh,” the medic sat up, looking at the landscape around her. “where are we?” 

“On an island is all I got. I have no idea how I got here.” Ben had been alone on the island for the past four hours and while he found he had three or four books to keep him company and his mind entertained, he had no one else to share the island with. Humans were programmed to be social so he had been getting restless. Liz turning up seemed like a miracle to him. 

“I was looking at a book and the picture started to move. I saw you then I touched the picture and that must have brought me here. Anyway if you’re in trouble I’ll gladly help. You are a friend after all.” 

“Thanks but I don’t know what to do or how to get off of this island.” Ben took Liz’s hand and helped her to stand up. Liz was wearing mid thigh jean shorts with leather belt, a light blue tank top and a red zip up hoodie. Ben was attired similarly with sneakers, tan cargo shorts, a gray t-shirt with a bright yellow check chamois shirt knotted at his waist. The real estate agent pressed a two way radio to Liz’s hand. “Stay in touch.”

“We will figure it out together. What’s this thing?” Liz stood up and turned as Ben asked that question. He spied a neat gray metal door and as soon as he touched it it retracted, making both of them jump. “How about we both enter this really carefully?” the real estate agent took Liz’s hand, gently guiding her behind his back as they entered the chamber. 

Apprehensively they descended the stairs and entered a big circular room. In the center there was what looked like a pot of water put on to boil. Ben saw a button at the front of the circular device and pressed it. The water disappeared and revealed several lights instead. 

“What is that?” Liz searched the room for any kind of notification or guide on how to use whatever that was and turned up a notice posted near the door. “Oh, it’s a dimensional imager. There’s a few choices on here; 1 is for a holographic map of the island, 2 is for some marker switch thingamajigy, and 3 is for some kind of personal message recorder.” 

“Hang on!” Ben snatched a piece of paper that he spied by the imager. “You better read this.” 

“Liz, I know you and Ben will find us and we desperately need your help. We’ve been trapped on these worlds with no way out! John’s in a world where there is a ship or something, Roger’s stuck on some kind of fortress, Brian’s in some underground place and I’m in a world where there are treehouses! We want to go home! I managed to record a message in that thing by the dock in case this gets lost. Put in the number of us to get the message. Love Freddie.” 

“OK, how do I do that?” she folded up the paper and put it in her pocket. Ben checked out the notice, trying to pick up the piece of paper nailed to the wall but then noticed two screws indicating a recessed panel. He passed his hand over the paper and the panel slid up with a hissing sound. 

“It’s a panel. Let’s see here… he said the number of you?” 

“Yeah.” 

“OK let’s see here,” Ben entered 04 in the panel and pressed the green button. “did it work?” the panel covering slid back down and they turned to the imager. A picture of Freddie showed up on the screen looking a bit anxious. 

“I’d say it worked.” Liz joined Ben to view Freddie’s message.

“I hope you get this, Liz and Ben! We don’t know what happened to us-we were looking at the books in Liz’s bedroom when we found the white book with the leather binding and all of a sudden we are here! Brian’s gone missing and he somehow managed to get a note to us-saying that he was trapped in a distant land which spewed fire and was underground or something! John disappeared as well! We’re trapped like rats and we need you to help us!” Freddie’s message fizzled out. 

“Oh god, my friends,” Liz paled a little bit, sparking concern from Ben. “I have to get to them fast! I have no idea what they’re going through!” Ben put his hand on Liz’s arm to try to calm her a little bit. 

“All right, I think we need to explore here. Let’s assume for the moment that we are alone on the island. I haven’t seen any other inhabitants at all.” Ben took Liz’s arm and guided her up the stairs, watching her carefully. Liz composed herself by clearing her mind and assuming a methodical approach to finding out what was going on. 

“OK. Where do we go from here?” the door slid shut behind them as they walked along the dock, looking at the sunken ship and the strange receptacle that had a handle on it. Out of curiosity Liz flipped it up but it didn’t do anything. “I don’t suppose that there’s any harm in leaving this on.” 

“It might indicate some sort of landmark,” Ben offered as they climbed up the steps to the sunken gear on top of the platform. He flipped up the switch as Liz turned to see a big cylindrical structure sticking out of the precipice near the gear. 

“It’s a tower or something.” she leaned over the rail to try to glimpse it better. Ben grabbed her arm and hauled her back over to the stairs. 

“I don’t need you going over the edge. Come on, let’s check this place out.” 

“Fine.” 

The pair turned up a library, a spaceship, what looked like an underground shed, several pillars with random objects on it, a planetarium, a model of the sunken ship by the dock, a log cabin, and an offshore clock tower that was in perfect working order. Ben was religiously flipping up switches left and right as he found them, hopeful that they were indicators of something big. 

“Now what is the planetarium thing?” Liz turned the lights off and sat in the chair which was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked. “What’s your birthday, Ben?”

“Um, November 3rd.” 

“What year?”

“Every year.” he giggled. Liz adjusted the slider dials but didn’t get anything useful so she sighed and retracted the viewer. 

“I think it’s a star mapping chart. We are looking at millions of combinations and we would never get anywhere trying to upload all of them.” 

“Maybe just the astrological signs?” Ben guessed as he switched the lights back on. 

“Nah. We need something more concrete to go on.” Liz accepted Ben’s helping hand up then both left the planetarium. 

“What’s in here?” the library had no doors to open so Ben went curiously inside while Liz stood outside to admire the surroundings a little more. The waves lapping at the dock, the gentle breezes tousling her black hair, the butterflies that danced on the zephyr all combined to give Liz a moment of peace. The medic pulled out an elastic from her hoodie side pocket, pulled her hair into a ponytail, then exhaled happily. 

“Liz, come in here!” she obeyed Ben’s call. The real estate agent was standing facing a painting of some steps. “What is this?”

“I’m no expert but I think it’s a painting of stairs,” she teased. “what’s the significance?”

“Well, since all laws of physics seem to be out the window at this point,” Ben waved his hand in front of the painting and it did a spiraling motion. “weird!” 

A series of internal mechanical sounds began, forcing the pair to step back from the painting and turn towards the bookshelves. Ben stood in front of Liz to guard her instinctively, watching the bookshelves slide back from their proper places and form stairs to a passageway. The medic wasn’t a feminist in the least, appreciating the gesture that Ben displayed. When the mechanical rumbling died down they both peered into the hallway warily 

“Ladies first!” Ben gave her a hand up to navigate the stairs then followed her to the end of the corridor and both saw an elevator standing in the center of a circular room. “Always a circle.. notice the obsession with circular rooms here? The imager by the dock?” 

“Weird isn’t it? Get in, let’s see where this goes.” Ben got in behind Liz as she shut the door, pressed the up button and waited. The elevator chugged into life, rose halfway, spun to face a different direction, then rose the rest of the way. Ben pulled back the heavy door, Liz got out, then found a ladder. 

“There’s a book icon on here.” she ascended the ladder and saw nothing but rock. 

Ben wandered to the other side, found a plaque with a key icon on it and ascended. Again nothing but rock. The real estate agent descended the ladder normally but Liz grasped onto the rails and slid down to the floor. 

“How did you do that?” he thought that Liz was always full of surprises no matter what they were doing. 

“My brother taught me years ago. There’s nothing else on this floor so I think we should go back down.” 

“Good idea,” Ben agreed, getting into the elevator again. “come on.” 

Back in the library Liz peered closer at another painting of an open door. “Oh, so that painting opens up the passageway to the tower and this painting closes it. What’s that picture over there?” 

“What picture?” there was a picture of the island plus the small offshore island that housed the clock tower. Ben supposed that there was a way to get to the clock tower to flip the switch that was there but he hadn’t seen any evidence of a way to get across yet. 

“This world is really interactive!” Liz giggled. The picture was lit up with white light. “How is it the icons are activated? Is it always this way or did we do something?” 

“I have no idea. Hang on a second.” Ben touched the open door painting, went out to the planetarium and flipped off the switch. 

“That would be it!” Liz’s voice sounded on the radio to him. “Turn it back on!” 

Doing so he went back into the library, picking his hand up over the icon that looked like a bullseye. A raspy sound emitted then both of them heard the mechanical sounds and felt the rumbling sounds. Ben kept his hand down until he saw a red line and stopped. 

“Where is it lined up?” Liz was trying to peer over Ben’s shoulder which did not work. 

“Over that giant gear out by the dock.” he answered, turning to face her. “Think we should go out there and see if we can find something different?”

“No. I think nothing will change out there. It’s the tower-it has to be! That’s the only thing that can move on the damn island! The tower is key to this whole thing. Remember the tower ladder with the key sign?” 

“I can see the lightbulb in your head.” Ben grinned, touching the painting of the passageway. “Come on then.” 

Up in the tower Liz mounted the ladder with the book icon and saw the tower was peeking out over the gear. Ben was at the other ladder and saw a plaque. 

“What does it say, Ben?” Liz called from the other side. 

“Two forty PM and two, two, one.” he answered, sliding down the ladder as he’d seen Liz do. “I think that will program the clock and get us across the water.” 

“This one is your call then. Lead the way.” the medic tailed Ben to the other part of the island where they reached the controls for the clock. “Let me know if I’m off.” 

“Right.” in order to operate the controls Ben applied the same principles as the ones used to read or set an analog clock. The smaller wheel was the hour hand, larger was the minute hand, etc. It took a little trial and error to get oriented using the control box, but he turned the hour hand twice, then gave the big minute hand eight cranks. Ben stood up, drawing Liz back from the edge of the water as they heard a mechanical rumbling accompanied by rushing water. 

“Fancy a dip into the water?” he cheekily suggested. Liz rolled her eyes. 

“There could be sea monsters in there or something. I’d rather be dry and safe.” 

A passageway had formed, several gears in a line went from the shore to the clock tower. Ben and Liz crossed it warily, the former flipping up the switch box as he went. It was humid outside a little bit as the door was stuck shut from the wood swelling up. Ben motioned for Liz to stand back as he rammed the door open with his shoulder. Inside they saw three gears mounted horizontally, each inscribed with numbers from zero to nine. There was a small facsimile of the giant gear beside the lake as well. 

“How do I operate this thing?” Ben stood in front of the machine. Liz saw two counterweights like a cuckoo clock would have, a reset handle, and two handles on either side of the gear device. The real estate agent took a hold of one of the handles, pulled it, then held down on it for two rotations. 

“Hang on a second,” Liz saw the counterweights had gone all the way down. She reached out, holding down on the lever to reset the weights. “you have a limited number of turns before it resets. Let me hold down this lever for a minute..” the gear squeaked noisily as Liz let up on the lever. 

“Oh I get it!” Ben exclaimed. “If you hold it down the numbers spin twice. Pull the lever once and it rotates only one time.” 

“Trial and error.” they had to reset the weights several times but they managed to get the 221 loaded onto the gears. Liz had to laugh as the mini gear in front of the device rolled back so it was half open. “I think miniatures are going to be a common theme here too.”

“Probably. Let’s go and see what’s what out there.” they shut the door to the clock tower and walked to the other end of the island. Ben stole a sideways glance at Liz as they walked though she looked composed and calm; he bet she was the opposite inside her mind. All four of her friends had gone missing, they knew next to nothing about where they were, and stuck on a mysterious island. He himself was seriously concerned about the others and their welfare, though what was really on his mind was how Liz was handling it. 

The medic walked with Ben by the planetarium and looked out over the ocean, her mind still buzzing with Freddie’s cryptic message but fortunately she was able to concentrate on whatever task on hand presented itself. She glanced at Ben who looked impassive as usual. He must be an ace at playing poker, she thought to herself, a smile creeping to her mouth.

“What’s that about?” he noticed her grin. 

“You have a great poker face, Ben.” 

“I do? Thanks!” they walked over the boardwalk and up the stairs to the the giant gear. Liz and Ben picked up the same book that Liz had found earlier in her bookshelf back at the estate. Both of them watched as Liz opened up the book to the first page, finding just an inky blackness in a rectangle. 

“I read the book associated with this,” Ben announced. “it’s called the Mechanical Age. An entire world sunk into the sea and a fortress is all that remains of it. Apparently there were pirates.” 

“Wonderful. I think only one of us can go and get Roger. He’s got to be going spare right now.” 

“I bet he is. You go, Liz.” Ben handed the book to her. “I doubt the age’s past has much to do with the future right now. Take my radio.”

“Sure?” Liz attached both radios to her belt. 

“Yeah. I think that I need to rest and there’s no bedroom or anything on this island. Anyway I don’t think we sleep normally here anyway. When I’m tired I just seem to drop where I stand and when I wake up I’m fine. It’s like the island casts a spell over me.” Ben admitted, sitting on top of the stairs. 

“All right if you’re sure.” hesitantly she touched the cream colored page, seeing a flyby of a land completely under water, a metal fortress with three islands. In one of the windows of the fortress Liz could just barely see a still figure lying on the floor. 

“Oh my god, Roger!” the medic cried out, startling Ben. “He’s just lying very lifelessly on the floor! I have to get to him!” she put her hand on the page and was instantly transported. 

Ben stared at the place where Liz had just disappeared from, worried about his friends. He felt lonelier now than before, turning and walking to the planetarium. “Godspeed, Liz.” he muttered to himself, closing his eyes. 

MECHANICAL AGE

Lying on the floor, Liz woke up to see corrugated metal left and right which made her think that she was in a subterranean or basement level. The medic sat up, checked herself over, then observed that the air was a little more humid than she would like. Standing up, she went up a flight of stairs, then saw to her left there was a platform with railings, making her think that there was a hidden entrance to somewhere. Liz saw a pedestal with the top shaped like a gear. On the top of the gear were four squares that each had a different symbol on them. 

“What is this?” she pushed buttons, observing that each one flipped up a different symbol. “Some code.” while the pedestal grabbed her attention for a moment, Liz smelled salt water, then observed the metal fortress. 

It was corrugated metal gray with a green path from where she was standing. There were no railings whatsoever and the path was on a circle track, making Liz suppose that the fortress could be moved somehow. She took a step onto the green path and not looking down, walked into the fortress carefully. Once inside Liz didn’t think that there was anyone else threatening so she took the left pathway nonchalantly. 

“What is this place?” Liz walked into a room that had a very rich and opulent looking interior with a high backed chair that had intricate scrollwork engraved onto it. “Nice. An artisan could do this but it would be really expensive. Nice tapestry though.” 

The medic’s hand hovered near the bottom edge of the tapestry as she picked up the edge to check for an artist’s signature, but she heard a metallic hiss and a clunk, something she was getting too familiar with nowadays. Liz discovered she’d triggered a door to open so she stepped through it to the other side. 

“Oh my god!” she breathed, seeing chests of gold, coins, jewelry. “Treasure!” there was a scroll lying on the floor so Liz picked it up and began to read. 

“Liz, I hope you come for me! This place is dangerous! It’s a complete mindfuck and I saw pirates trying to get access to the fortress! I hid upstairs until they were gone but still it was such a bad night! I need to get out of here as soon as possible! Save me!” the handwriting was Roger’s plain and simple. 

“Roger!” Liz raced out of the room and into the hallway, shouting her friend’s name. “Roger, where are you?!”

The medic stumbled into another room which was a complete departure from the first one. The second was heavy on grotesque imagery-weapons like maces, meat cleavers dotted the room, making Liz recoil in horror from it. A panel with a yellow line running through it revealed a hidden room and the person she’d been looking for. 

“Roger!” she exclaimed, kneeling down and tapping his cheeks in an effort to rouse him. “Come on hon, wake up for me!” 

He wasn’t yielding. Liz checked him over to make sure he was physically all right then spied a shelf full of bottles, mortar and pestle nearby. Most of the bottles were marked poison, making her wonder what sick person had stocked their secret room with such noxious concoctions. 

“Wait a minute..” she uncorked one of the bottles and got a little whiff of it. “this is ammonia. It’ll wake up Roger for sure.” the medic applied the bottle to Roger’s nose and sure enough he got a whiff of it and groaned. “Roger, hon, it’s me.” she hoisted him up by the armpits, propping him up against the wall. 

“Liz?” he muttered. “What is it?” 

“I’m here, Rog,” it took a moment to sink in but the drummer’s eyes fluttered open wide, he sat up, turned, then engulfed Liz in a big hug. 

“I’m so glad you’re here!” his eyes looked a bit teary to Liz’s surprise. 

“Roger.. whoa!” he tightened up his grip a little bit. “what do you remember of getting here?” 

Roger blinked blearily as he tried to focus his thoughts. “The four of us were on a strange island, Brian was interested in the spaceship, I liked the giant gear, Deacy was on about the sunken ship, and Freddie had been exploring the cabin. Before we went to those four areas we were looking for you, wondering why you weren’t around here.” 

“Do you remember Ben being there at all?”

Standing up, Roger looked even more confused. “Ben? No. I don’t think he was there at all. Is he now?” 

“Yeah. He found me.” 

“Found you?” they left the hidden room and began to walk around the fortress. 

“Long story short, Rog, I picked up a book, found an animated flyby of an island with the spaceship and whatnot on it, then when I touched the page I fainted and the next thing I know Ben’s encouraging me to wake up and I’m on the island.” 

“How’d you get here?” 

“Ben and I figured out the key to getting around on the island. I’ll tell you about it later.” 

“Is he here too?” 

“No. I think the books only allow one person at a time to go through.” 

“Right. I had a hellish night last night, Liz,” they reached the entrance of the opulent room and Roger sat on the thronelike chair. “this person had some good taste.” 

“Tell me what happened.” she stood near the window with her arms folded. 

“Well I’ve only been here about a day or two,” Roger began. “I was getting used to how it was around here. I didn’t sleep per se, I would get tired enough at night then just collapse where I was standing or sitting. The weird thing was the time-I would faint at exactly nine PM every night and wake at 8. So when the pirates came yesterday I couldn’t control when I would fall asleep.” 

“I hope the pirates couldn’t come in,” Liz told him warily. 

“No they couldn’t,” Roger affirmed. “I was paranoid in case that they did. I found a way to get to the top floor to escape them. I stayed there all day and when night came around I came back down, saw they were still circling the fortress, then I found that hidden room.” 

“So you stayed in there until you fainted?” 

“Yeah.” 

“My word, this world or dimension or whatever you want to call it bends physics a bit and yet we can’t control our own sleeping habits here. It’s telling us we have to sleep between 9-8 AM which is almost tyrannical in a way. Well, we can’t stay here. I have to get you back to Ben while I find the others.” 

“Are they OK? Do they know you’re here?” 

“Only you and Ben know that I’m here. All we need to do is find a way out of this world. There’s two islands here and there was some mention of being able to rotate the fortress which we would need to do.” 

“I know how, I think!” Roger jumped up. “The elevator I found yesterday. That will help us out!” 

“Oh boy! Lead on!” the drummer led Liz down a center corridor. “It’s pink!” 

“Fuck the color! Look here,” Roger got in, pulled her in with him, then pressed the up button. “that’s not all of it. Press the middle button. I don’t know what to make of it.” 

The middle button made the elevator stop between floors and it stayed there. Liz pressed the up button and shoved Roger out. “This universe makes no sense but hang on while I figure it out!” she pressed the middle button again, riding the elevator halfway down, then heard Roger shout that there were controls on the top of the elevator cab. 

“My idea worked!” she pressed up, then pressed the middle button and jumped out of the elevator. “Dash up there and work the controls, Roger.” 

“I see an image of gears turning. How do we know where the fortress is rotated?”

“Hmmm… I saw something back in one of the rooms. Hang on! Ben gave me this before I left.” she handed Roger one of the two ray radios that had been hanging on her belt. 

“OK, so what do we do here?” Roger hummed. 

“I need to go back downstairs and watch as you rotate the fortress, all right?” 

“Sure.” Liz got into the elevator, went downstairs and stood at the entrance to the fortress. Roger fiddled with the dials then the fortress began to turn. 

“Anything yet?” the drummer’s voice echoed over the radio. 

“Yeah! Hang on!” Liz pulled a little notepad and pen out of her pocket. The fortress was moved to one island and the humidity was intense so she took her hoodie off, knotted it at her waist, then hooked the strap of the radio to her belt, walking confidently to the island. 

On the island Liz saw a pedestal with the gear face and the four small squares. Two of them had symbols on them which she noted down with mild interest. “All right, Roger, I think you can move the fortress to the other island! Whoa!” the fortress had started to move as soon as she put her hand on the pathway so Liz had to gallop all the way to the other end. 

“Careful, Rog! I didn’t say move it yet!” she laughed. 

“Sorry! I don’t know how to drive this thing!” Liz could hear the laugh clearly. 

“All right, I think you can stop now! Whoa, Rog!” she exclaimed a few minutes later as she saw the green path line up with the other island. “Stop it so I can move!” 

“Move what?” 

“Never mind! Don’t move the fortress again until I tell you!” the last sequence of code was ascertained, the second island looking exactly like the first, and Liz went right back to the fortress. Roger rotated the building again, lining it up with the island Liz had already been on originally. 

“Come on down, Rog!” she sang out happily. It took a few moments for the drummer to get down from the top but he joined her at the entranceway about ten minutes later. “Took you long enough!” 

“Excuse me! I kept screwing up the controls!” he made an excuse, laughing at his friend. “I’m so glad you found me! I’ll never remember how I got here or there but I’m glad to be going back!” 

Liz saw the pedestal, consulted her little pad of paper, then plugged in the symbols that she’d found earlier. Unlocking sounds were heard, she grasped Roger’s hand, wondering inwardly if the pirates had come back, then a staircase lowered. Warily Roger descended the staircase first, prepared to protect Liz if need be but nobody was down there. 

“It’s the book..” the same white book with leather binding and corners. “Hold my hand, Roger. I don’t know if we both will be transported back.” 

Roger picked up Liz’s smooth hand protectively as she opened up the book. Neither one of them were familiar with the scene on the page, some sort of image of cloud and sky with a six pointed black star spinning around. The two gazed at each other for a long moment before Liz locked her fingers with Roger’s then touched the image. 

Everything went black. 

SELENITIC AGE

“Liz? Roger!” Ben’s voice entered into the drummer’s consciousness. 

Roger groaned loudly and opened up his eyes as Ben loomed over him worriedly. Blue eyes met blue eyes as the real estate agent offered Roger a hand up. “My god, what is it here? With Freddie and the others with me this place was a lark, you know, a laugh, and now it seems sinister almost.” Roger glanced up. “Oh it was the ceiling we were seeing!” Ben looked up as well. 

“Come on, we need to get Liz up.” Roger propped her up and said her name a few times. After several worrying minutes she roused, making the others jump. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

“Nothing. It just took a long time to get you to wake up.” Ben answered. “What’s going to tickle your fancy next? The shed?” 

“Sure. There’s an electrical wire over there.” Liz got up and showed them the electric cable running from the back of the shed and a few brick platforms the wire could be accessed in case of a short. “Roger, check out this painting real quick.” she showed him how to rotate the tower behind them. The medic rotated the tower until the red line showed over the spaceship. “Ben’s going to take you up to the tower viewing area to see what the slots show. Radio me what you find.” 

“All right.” Liz stood outside the library, waiting, and watching the tower rotate. She barely heard Roger’s rich swearing as he tripped on one of the ladders and started smirking. 

“The plaque says 59 volts!” Ben’s voice rasped on her radio. 

“All right!” she acknowledged. “We got this! I’m heading down to the shed!” Liz walked down the path, noticing that it was transitioning from day to evening. With any luck she would be in a different spot to find Brian before long so she would be exempt from the mandatory “sleep” period that nobody could escape from. 

Down in the subterranean cavern she found a small control booth looking down on several generators that reached off in the darkness. “They shouldn’t need this much power, whoever ‘they’ are,” she muttered to herself. “anyway, let’s try this thing out.” Liz started pressing random buttons while both indicators buzzed; their needles going up into the red zone. 

“So far so good.. the hell?!” the right gauge shut down to zero. “Ben, Roger, come in,” she spoke on the radio. “Guys, I checked the generators and they work, but I got the left gauge up to 71 and the right one is on zero. Any thoughts?” 

“It seems that you tripped a breaker,” Ben told her. “Roger and I will climb up these breaker towers and see which one has been tripped. Standby.” 

“All right.” about five minutes later, Ben was at the top of one tower, Roger on the other, communicating by signs, Roger indicated his breaker wasn’t tripped at all. Ben threw the switch on his tower, then motioned for Roger to come back down. The two of them joined Liz in the basement, Ben calculating in his mind how to get to 59 volts. 

“We need exactly 59 volts or we will trip the breaker again,” Ben warned. He pressed a few buttons to get a sense of how much voltage each button unleashed. “there.. I think that will work..” the real estate agent got the math right and before they knew it, 59 volts exactly was going through the power line. 

“You’re awesome, Ben!” Liz gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Is there a book that corresponds to this place where I’m going?” 

“Yeah.”

“You’re going? What about me?” 

“You’re staying here, Roger. I don’t know what I’m getting into and I won’t drag you into it. Besides, you need to rest. You were attacked by pirates!” 

The drummer did not have the energy to argue with Liz as they walked back into the library. Ben pulled out a book that had a drawing of a spaceship and a piano keyboard on one page. The real estate agent glanced between Liz and Roger, sensing a little undercurrent between them that suggested there was something, a history between them. He chose to say nothing on that front wisely while Liz sensed that Ben was staring at her, shooting him a benign look. 

Roger studied the keyboard picture with the numbers with a frown as Liz pulled out her little notebook, ready to take notes. 

“In this position,” he tilted the picture sideways. “I can translate this into musical notes. One is middle C, 2 is C in a higher octave, 3 is D sharp, 4 is F, and 5 is B flat. Let’s go!”

“All right! I knew music would play into this eventually!” Liz led the way as the men walked on behind her. Ben and Roger watched her idly as she pulled the ponytail out of her hair, shook her hair out, then reached the platform with the spaceship on it. The medic leaned over the rail, getting a little bit of a spray from the waves crashing against the shore nearby. Liz pulled her hair over her shoulder and gave herself a braid, wiping the water from her face. 

“I know you’re a drummer, do you play piano too?” Ben inquired as they walked along together. 

“I was trained on guitar and piano before I turned to drums,” Roger said conversationally. “it was a big help.” the drummer liked Ben a lot; they always had something to chat about and the real estate agent was a good conversationalist as well. When he first met Ben he thought him a little too quiet but Freddie and Liz’s outgoing personalities not to mention his own had really helped bring Ben out of his shell. 

“Good. Am I wrong or is there something between you and Liz? I picked up on a little something.” Ben thrust his hands in his pockets, unsure if Roger was going to tell him to fuck off or not. 

Roger sighed a little bit. “We have a little history. Liz met me in college when we did biology together. She went on to become a paramedic and later our personal medical nurse if you will. Liz dated my roommate at the time, John, they broke it off, she’s slept with everyone in the band now.” 

“Wow.” Ben remarked. “Now she’s with John, right?” the real estate agent and the others in the band were a little envious of Liz and John’s relationship; the fact they both worked together and were in each other’s company made them a lot closer than anyone else. 

“Yeah. Ten years after we graduated college we lost track and I found her in full firefighting gear looking to get out of the EMT business. I recommend her for the job being our own personal EMT and she gets hired on. I fucked her, Freddie fucked her, Brian did, and of course John did.” 

“Right. Wait, she fucked Freddie? Isn’t he gay?”

“No, he’s bisexual. He just feels like he wants men most of the time.” 

“I see.” they reached the spaceship, Roger put his hand on the door and it slid open. At one end of the ship was a harpsichord and the other was a viewing portal, five slider bars and a lever. 

“OK now we need a good tonal ear to get this properly put onto the sliders.” Ben watched as Liz stood at the harpsichord and Roger was at the slider. It took a long time of trial and error, then deciding which slider was the right number. The high C was the easiest one as it was right in the middle, then process of elimination was necessary to get it right. 

“Finally!” Roger yanked the lever and the white book loomed up in the viewing portal. “Here, you’ll need this.” he took the radio and clipped it to Liz’s belt securely. In the background Ben still found it a little hard to believe that the band touched Liz so indiscriminately without a respect for her personal space. It was part of their bond, he supposed. 

“Thanks, Rog, Here I go off to rescue Brian!” the flyby of the new world revealed another island, a little bigger than the one they were currently on, with several stonelike structures rising out of the water amid a walkway. Liz reached out and touched the image and all went quiet. 

When she next opened her eyes, she coughed and sat up, discovering she was lying in sand. The medic turned off the radios to conserve battery power, stood up, then saw a large shed with another five bar slider code on it. 

“The hell with that!” she made a dismissive gesture with her hands and started walking the winding pathway behind the shed. In no time at all she saw a brick stairway leading down so Liz thought nothing of walking down the stairs. There was a small kiosk made out of brick with a red button on the center, the image right in back of the button showed a horizontal zigzag with three lines rising up. 

“What is that?” the medic turned to the other side of the brick platform where she felt a rising steam heat. “Oh never mind! It’s a giant fissure or chasm! What does this button do!?” Liz pressed it and it glowed for a moment. 

The medic heard the roaring of the chasm more clearly and saw a small device hanging right over the edge. The device was circular and had a red flashing light in the center yet there was something familiar about it. “Of course! Freddie and the others sing into these! It’s a microphone!” Liz chose not to question it, the world was a completely bizarre weird thing that didn’t make any sense to her, so she walked on, away from the heat. 

Continuing on Liz found what looked like an oasis, punched the button for the microphone and moved on, liking the fact she could just run up, press a button and walk away. 

The medic wandered on, finding a clock tower that seemed to be half finished from the looks of it. Liz had a thing about clock towers, which extended to her childhood. When she was young her parents had taken her to London where she had developed a fascination for Big Ben and in her childhood vacations there were several clock towers that piqued her interest. 

“Wow. Never finished.” she ran her hand along the side of the tower, turning on the switch for the microphone. Liz turned and was about to head down to the strange protrusions coming up from the water when she heard a groan. “Brian?” 

“Liz?” the voice emanated from behind the clock tower. 

“Brian?” the tall lanky guitarist emerged from behind the structure, tired hazel eyes lit up with a genuine smile as he swept her up in his arms in a big hug. “You’re all right!” 

“I’m all right but what about the others?” he put her down carefully. 

Liz snapped on both of the radios and handed him one. “In case we get lost.” 

“Smart girl. How are the others?”

“I got Roger out first. He’s all right, a little tired maybe. It turns out he was in a place, a fortress on water with three islands and the day before I came to bring him back he was under attack by pirates.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes but he’s all right. The fortress moved on a track and the pirates couldn’t get in at all. We managed to get out by piecing together the code. Bri, did you know Ben is on the main island as well?”

“Ben? I don’t remember seeing him there.” 

“Roger doesn’t either. Anyway he found me when I came onto the island and he’s been good helping us out-he’s much better at mental math than me or Roger are.” 

“Good I guess,” Brian sniggered. “where are we?” 

“Look at all of this,” they walked down a pathway, holding onto the railings as they were out over water. Brian leaned in to touch one of the protrusions. “it’s all stone yet so geometric! What a marvel of nature!” 

“Isn’t it? Why don’t we have these in our.. world?” Liz agreed. “Oh there’s another microphone! Turn it on, Brian!” 

“What for?” 

“I don’t know but I don’t want to have to come back to turn it on.” Brian pressed the button. The two of them walked on, talking about the bizarreness of the world and how none of it seemed to add up. On their walk they encountered another brick kiosk. Liz punched the button while Brian craned his neck to look down. 

“A wind tunnel! Look, there’s a ladder near it. I think we need to go down.” Brian clambered onto the ladder and started climbing down with Liz on top following him. “Do not fart on me!” he warned, nearly giddy with excitement. 

“I won’t if you move it quickly!” she threatened with a laugh. Brian reached the end, hopped off the ladder and helped Liz down. Both of them were in pitch blackness until Liz felt around, checking the walls, then felt something like a light switch which she flipped on. 

“So where are we? Too bad I don’t have spelunking gear.” they found themselves in a dank tunnel where the humidity was almost oppressive. 

“Follow the path.” the path led to a set of metal doors which slid back quickly. 

“What is this, Brian?” Liz stood inside the small space while Brian got in next to her, avoiding the doors sliding shut again. Her claustrophobia threatened to rear up but Liz managed to keep a lid on it, distracting herself by looking at the instrument panel. 

“It’s a sound booth. Look, there’s five sounds we need to load up. Got a pen and paper?” 

“Yeah,” Liz produced both, poised to take notes. “what are we doing?” 

“This button looks like the oasis thingy out there,” Brian muttered. “look at this camera angle… can I move it? I can! Now I understand!” 

“What?” Brian’s conversations with himself were stuff of legend the band liked to talk about. He talked himself through what was confusing him, a source of great amusement for the others. 

“Look at this camera and icon. We press the icon for the oasis here and we need to swing the camera around until we hear the oasis sound being broadcast thanks to the switch you pressed.” Brian hovered his hand over one of the switches, panning the camera around until he began to focus in on one of the sounds. 

“Very analytical, Brian. We could have used you in moving the fortress earlier.” 

“Thanks, I think.” Brian ignored most of her comment, not understanding the bit of about the fortress, plugged in the sounds from all five of the places around the island, made sure that Liz noted each one of them in case they had to do it again, then they left the antenna control booth. 

“Where do we go now?” she was wilting under the humidity of the underground and even Brian seemed to notice it by now. He wiped his brow off then offered his arm to Liz. 

“We walk back to the shed where I found myself,” Liz started walking. “what have you seen since you’ve been here?” 

“No living person in sight except for you but I saw plenty of natural phenomenon. I’ve only been here one or two nights that I remember but at twilight I was by that stone forest thing out over the water and I saw green lights in the water. What do you call that?” 

“Phosphorescence?” 

“Yeah that. It was beautiful. That night I didn’t hear anything but when I woke up at 8 AM it was a mighty thunderstorm. I had to run to the clock tower in order to escape from it. There was a huge hailstorm as well. The rest of the day was rainy and drizzly but today there was heat lightning and it went on for a long time. There was an earthquake too. This place freaks me right out!” 

“Well look up there, Bri.” Liz and Brian came to the end of the tunnel, ascended a ladder and found themselves out on the main island again. A gentle rain was falling even though the sun was shining so out of habit she looked for a rainbow. 

“What?” 

“It’s a rainbow.” Brian shielded his eyes from the midday sun to see a rainbow had appeared. “It’s damn humid both here and where Roger was.” 

“It is?” 

“Yeah. Here we are at the shed so let me just pull out my handy dandy cheat sheet!” Liz pulled out her notepad and together they loaded up the code on the slider bars. The door opened up for them, they wound their way down a long path to a big circular room that had some sort of device sitting on a track. 

“What is that? A tram?” the medic paused while Brian jumped right in. Thankfully to them the humidity had disappeared from the atmosphere. Brian turned and offered his hand to Liz, frowning when she hesitated. 

“What are you waiting for?” 

“I have a little claustrophobia, Brian!” 

“We need to get back to the main island, come on!” he turned off the two way radio, handed it back to Liz, who accepted his hand, guided her into the little tram car. 

“What do we do in here?” Liz sat in the back. The pod car had a simple instrument panel, a compass, two arrow keys, a speaker, a button that said FORWARD and BACKTRACK. There was a viewing porthole about three feet big and circular. Brian hit a switch that lit up the front of the pod so they could see what was in front of them. 

“Time for me to use my analytical mind; sit back and be amazed!” Brian teased. “Backtrack is going to take us to the last correct position on this track. The directional indicator here says we are north and if we paid attention to the clues on this island it’s all about the sounds. We will associate the directions with sounds as clues. As we are north we push this red button to hear the sound connected with north which is a little bell,” both of them heard a faint chime. “we will figure out the rest when we move onto the track.” he pressed forward then the indicator flashed W for west and they heard a hissing sound. “That would be west so we hit forward again...” 

Brian talked himself through the maze and after the first five minutes Liz got bored with it and hooked both two way radios to her belt. The guitarist was very good at the directional cues and only messed up when it came to going northeast or combined directions. 

“Sheesh, Bri, I lost interest about ten minutes ago.” the medic mocked him gently, playing with her braid for a moment. Finding another elastic in her shorts Liz wound up the braid into a little bun and fastened it securely to the back of her head. “At least it’s comfortable in here.” 

“Doesn’t matter now!” the tram was parked on the rails, the lights went down, then Brian stood up and stretched. “Come on we will get back to the others.” 

“All right.” she accepted Brian’s hand up then went along the corridors to a little room which had the book in it. The guitarist picked up the book, interlocked his fingers with Liz’s, then touched the page. 

CHANNELWOOD AGE

Brian woke up first, hearing Ben and Roger’s voices nearby him. When he opened up his eyes he saw Roger giving him a big smile, offered his hand and helped him to sit up. “Glad Liz brought you back, Bri! How was your little vacation?” 

“Weird,” the guitarist shook his head. “it had all sorts of weird phenomenon with no reason for it. There was weather of all kinds and even though I’m not a meteorologist there was no set pattern. It was all random. Just before we left there was a rainbow so it wasn’t all bad.” 

“Interesting.” 

“Where’s Liz?” 

“Right beside you,” Ben was on his knees, trying to rouse Liz. “it’s getting a little more difficult to wake her up each time she leaves and comes back.” 

“Repeated exposure to this kind of travel must wear her out more than it does us.” 

“That it does, Bri,” Roger checked his watch. “it’s almost 9 PM.”

“Better get ready then,” Ben sat down behind Liz. “it’s coming.” 

“What is it?” Brian asked. 

“Ben and I were talking and we both noticed that at 9 PM on the dot we become sleepy and faint at exactly that time. We don’t wake up until 8 AM. This world takes away our own body’s control over how and when we sleep.” 

“I didn’t have a watch so I wouldn’t have known about it. I did notice that I fell asleep unusually fast in this place.” Brian reported. 

Roger nodded, checking his watch again. “If Liz doesn’t wake up at the same time we do then she could be in real trouble. Ten seconds.” 

Right on cue all three of them yawned and slumped over. 

**  
At 8 AM on the button Roger opened up his eyes, followed by everyone else. Liz sat up with the rest of them, keeping her eyes on everyone else. Ben looked at her, smiled, looking relieved that she had awakened. Brian picked up one of her hands and asked her how she felt. 

“Normal, why?”

“Because it’s the next day,” he informed her. “we had trouble trying to wake you up last night and you didn’t rouse at all.” 

“It’s the next day? Holy! I figure repeated travel, what three times in a day? That wiped me right out, not to mention all the mental exertion I had to undergo. Notice how none of us feel hungry or thirsty right now? I think that’s part of this world’s magic.” 

“It is. I haven’t even felt nature calling me at all.” Ben agreed. “What do we do now?” 

“It’s back to the tower time,” Liz was wobbly getting up so Roger steadied her. “Ben, turn the tower on that painting, Roger and I will go to the log cabin on the island and try to figure out what that’s all about. Here’s the radio.” she handed the real estate agent a two way radio then she and Roger left the library. 

Ben showed Brian what the tower rotation meant, already an expert in it. He rotated the tower until it faced the log cabin, then Brian jumped back as he heard a lot of metallic and mechanical whining and grumbling as the tower shifted to rotate where Ben had directed it to. 

“You get used to it after awhile.” Ben giggled, guiding Brian up the library shelves which had turned into steps and into the corridor. They went up in the elevator, Brian went into one viewing area where the big tree behind the log cabin showed perfectly. 

“Hey Liz, Roger!” he shouted with a wave. Neither one could hear him due to the distance but Brian smiled anyway. “Ben, what do you see?” 

“Hello, Liz,” Ben saw a plaque with three numbers on it as he raised up the radio to his mouth. 

“What have you got for me, Ben?” 

“Three numbers, 7, 2, 1.” 

“That will crack the code on the safe here. I’ll see you in a bit.” Ben and Brian went down to the log cabin where Roger had picked up the matchbox that had been in the safe. 

“So how’s it going in here?” Brian chirped. Liz had been standing by a red wheel while Roger examined the picture on the wall of a tree trunk in a platform. 

“I don’t get this picture at all,” the drummer looked a little bit frustrated. “what do you think, Liz?” 

“That looks like a boiler,” Brian told them. “hand over the matchbox, Rog.” 

“All right.” he surrendered the matchbox. Brian struck a match, held the flame to a little pilot light nobody had noticed before, generating a little spark in the fuel box below. 

“Something’s going to happen.. whatever it is I’m guessing it’s big, we will need a lot of steam pressure to trigger it,” Ben guessed, taking the wheel and cranking it all the way to the right. 

All of them stood around for about five minutes as Ben handed back the radio to Liz. It wasn’t long before they heard what sounded like an explosion followed by a clunking sound. Roger signaled them all to be quiet for a minute until they heard the sound again. 

“A boom and a clunk.. something’s going on.” they followed the sound outside and to the back of the cabin. “Look!” 

“Wow!” Liz shielded her eyes from the sun glare. 

There was a brick and mortar platform in the back of the log cabin and from that with each booming sound a giant redwood tree propelled itself up. “Look in that!” Brian pointed up at the tree. “There’s an elevator carved out of the side!” 

“Wow!” Liz said again, seeing the single person space with a light in it. “How do we get it to come back down?” 

“Release the steam pressure! You’ll hear it retract!” Roger led the way into the cabin where he cranked the wheel all the way to the left. Liz stayed beside the tree elevator as it began to go back down again. Brian watched her as she waited for the elevator to return to normal height, step in, then turn around and wave to the rest of them. 

“I’ll be back with Freddie!” she promised them, hooking both radios to her belt again. 

In the underground chamber Liz saw the place had redwood trees growing in a ring and on a tree stump sat another book. The flyby consisted of another little island with a maze of walkways, trees growing out of the water and huts built into the trees in another maze. 

“I’m going to a place of tremendous height it seems and I am afraid of heights!” Liz put her hand on the moving image which drew her into a dead faint. 

**

When Liz roused this time she found herself lying on a rock formation or the island she’d seen in the flyby view. The medic stood up warily, seeing a small wooden building out of the corner of her eye. It was a water pump with seemingly endless capacity in it. The water pump wasn’t pumping so Liz thought she would need water wherever it was she had to go so she turned the spigot on. 

With a little squeak of protest from the pump it began to do its job. Satisfied, Liz left the little rocky island, stepping onto a broad boardwalk with pipes lining it. 

“What on earth is this?” the was a small gauge that had green dots on it in a Y shape. “Water power? Routing or diverting the water to run something?” 

It took almost an hour of Liz walking the boardwalks and mapping where each one led to before she discovered an elevator that led up to the second floor. “Since Freddie’s not down here I think he’s upstairs,” she murmured, retracing her steps to the first Y fork and diverting the power to the elevator. “here we go!” 

The second level was full of circular and rectangular looking huts. Liz had been tracking and mapping her way around when she came to a switch in one of them. She flipped it up and the stairway door opened. 

“Liz?” a welcome voice sounded behind her. “You’re here for me!” she turned and found herself engulfed in a huge hug. 

“I’m glad I found you, Freddie!” Freddie looked the same, none worse for wear because of his ordeal. Liz walked with him to the winding staircase where they sat down on the platform, letting their legs dangle off the ledge. 

“So where are the others?” 

“I rescued Brian and Roger. Ben was on the main island as soon as I arrived. He roused me and gave me these radios to stay in contact,” Liz gave Freddie one. “just in case. You need to be able to contact me until we get separated. Unless you get lost in thought and stay behind I don’t see the need for using it.” 

“Did you just dig at me?” 

“I know how you are,” Liz was unruffled. “anyway we need to be careful on what we do. I noticed in wandering and mapping downstairs if you will that there’s an elevator way off the boardwalk that I would need us to get to. Right now I want to get up to the third level. The elevator for that doesn’t have any power so we need to reroute the water source.” 

“Right. I can go down there and find it. Sure you’re OK?” Freddie touched his friend’s arm. “You look very tired, Liz.” 

“I’m fine, Freddie. I can direct you to diverting the water power if you want.” 

“All right!” he jumped up, full of energy. “I’ll use the radio and you tell me what to do!” 

Freddie scrambled down the stairs as Liz consulted her map. “I want you to go towards the first Y fork from the rocky hill island over there.” 

“Got it.” she heard him walking along. “I’m right here now Liz, so what do you want me to do?” 

“Divert the water to the staircase so we get this elevator working.” Freddie did so and dashed up the stairs again as Liz hesitated by the elevator, biting her lip. 

“What’s wrong? Overtired?”

“No. I have a fear of heights, Freddie,” she admitted. “I feel like I can’t go any further than this.” 

The singer became concerned for his friend and put his hand on the side of her face. “Take my hand, lovie.” 

Liz smiled. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.” 

“I’m calling you it now. Take my hand and don’t let go.” Freddie gently drew her into the elevator, closed it and pressed the button to go up. Liz clenched his hand for a moment but didn’t let go at all. When the elevator stopped the pair warily stepped out onto the third story but only saw a few cabins. 

“Won’t take us long then,” nervously Liz walked with Freddie as he saw a cabin in back of them. “I hope.” 

“Nah. Be positive, lovie! Look at this room!” there was a bed, desk and a bureau. The desk was in front of a window that was looking out on the rocky island where the windmill was turning. Liz opened up the drawers under the bed out of idle curiosity but it was Freddie who found a page that was torn in half. “No idea what this is.” 

“Hang onto it then.” the medic told him. “So what do we do now?” 

“I think we need to go back down to the first level and find that elevator that you were telling me about, love.” Freddie declared. “I want to check out the other two rooms first!” 

As they entered the first of the rooms there was a resounding echo and a strange sounding language was spoken. Freddie clutched Liz’s hand as she was clutching his right back. The singer and the medic looked around the place as soon as the odd language died down and they saw that the occupant of the room had been very disturbed. 

“Look at this, drugs, weapons, almost ritualistic style occult!” Freddie was disgusted. “How sick was this person?” 

“I have no idea, all I know is that I need to get out of here.” Liz found the second room by mistake, was about to lean against the small table in the corner to recover her bearings when Freddie shouted, dived at her, grabbed her by the shoulders and threw them both to the floor. 

“The hell?” concealed metal teeth sprang up on the table like a bear trap and snapped shut for a moment. Freddie straightened up as Liz sat up, shaking uncontrollably. 

“Come on lovie, let’s get back downstairs.” he cooed, taking her hands and leading her outside. 

“I saw some disturbing things on the world Roger was trapped on but I didn’t think it would get that bad,” she admitted, putting her face in her hands. Freddie hugged her as they reached the bottom level. “this is a beautiful place but by god some parts of it..” 

“I know, I know. When I was here by myself yesterday I heard all sorts of strange voices that came from above me and I could not figure out what they were saying. It was like listening to the voices in my own head,” he soothed her. “there were terrific thunderstorms last night too. You would have liked them.” 

“I would have. The place where Brian was seemed to be unstable in terms of weather.” they began to walk the pathway down to the elevator. 

“What was Roger’s world like?” 

“It was a fortress on a track with three islands around it. Roger told me that the day before I came there were pirates that wanted to raid the fortress.” 

“What?” Freddie stopped. “Is he all right?” 

“Yeah. He’s fine, Freddie. The pirates could not get into the fortress because the islands are so rough and smooth they could not get a grip or even dock their longboats. We all did notice that these worlds take away our ability to fall asleep naturally. We all collapsed at 9 PM and woke up at 8 AM. Even if we weren’t tired we just dropped.” 

“Interesting. What of Brian’s world?”

“The weather was unstable there. Brian told me there were freak thunderstorms, heat lightning, hail, and all weather conditions were perfectly normal. The weather just blew up out of nowhere. You know how Brian talks himself through what he’s doing?”

“Yeah!” 

“He did that with this underground pod car on a track, talked himself through the entire thing. Drove me nuts!” Liz giggled. 

“He does that to everyone! Is this the elevator we need to get to?” 

“Yeah but how?” there was no pathway to it. “There’s a crank right there so maybe it’s the power that needs diverting again?” 

“I would bet on it!” Freddie and Liz spent about two hours total trying a few different ways to divert the power source, finding the bridge to the far elevator and discovering a pipe that connected the gap. 

“I never was in a place that was so frustrating,” Liz grumbled as they finally stepped into the elevator, closed the door and pulled the button. “so glad to be going away.” 

Freddie laughed and clasped her shoulder. He’d enjoyed the challenge now that Liz was here to rescue him from his prison. It was a nice place but he wouldn’t ever want to live there. The two rose up amongst the trees in silence, the singer holding Liz’s hand in silent support the whole time. 

“Don’t think I’m a cad dearie, but I enjoyed it because you were here with me.” he assured her with his famous grin. 

“There’s something to be said for partnership, Freddie,” Liz agreed as she picked up the book from the table. “Together now.” she interlocked her fingers with his and they touched the page.

STONESHIP

“Come on, Liz..” was the first thing she heard. The medic was lying on the floor of the library once again. 

“Ugh..,” she blinked open her eyes. “all this travel is wearing me out. I have to rescue John.” 

“Why don’t you rest for awhile, lovie?” Freddie’s welcome voice drifted to her as she sat up. 

“Freddie, John’s my love! I can’t just leave him where he is! Once I’m done I’ll have a rest.” 

“To the tower then?” Ben asked, trying to be funny. Liz just smiled and handed him the radio. “Which one shall I take with me this time? Freddie?” 

“Yeah, show Freddie,” she took Roger and Brian outside, showing them the sunken ship in the little basin in front of the library. In no time she heard the tower moving and Freddie’s shout of surprise, then the door came down and sealed off the outside. “I think that surprised old Mother Mercury a bit!” giggling, Roger and Brian began to examine the pedestals lining the central path. 

“Is this an anchor?” Roger waved his hand in front of it and it glowed red. He touched it and it turned green so he’d activated something. The drummer quickly turned it off, not wanting to screw anything up. Brian was similarly entranced by the icons but he had no clue what it meant. Liz leaned on the edge of the basin until Ben summoned her by the radio. 

“Liz, come in.” 

“Go ahead, Ben.” 

“I have here three dates and times and I have no idea what they mean.” 

“Give me the first date, maybe we can think of it together.” Brian and Roger crowded in to listen. 

“October 13th, 1984, 10:04 PM.” 

“I don’t know.. the other dates?”

“January 17th, 1207, 5:46 AM, and November 23, 9797, 6:57 PM.”

“Guys? Any ideas?” 

Roger shook his head but Brian was assimilating the dates in his mind. “The dates are completely random but the times are in early evening and late dawn. It’s pretty well known that we see impressive constellations in the wee hours of the morning so I bet that’s it! Is there any planetarium on the island?” 

“Yes there is! Ben, Brian thinks that they are dates for constellations. We’re heading to the planetarium.” Liz hooked her radio onto her belt then showed Brian into the planetarium beside the library. The guitarist lay down on the uncomfortable chair and pulled down the viewing panel while Roger cut the lights. 

“All right, Bri, you’re the best for interpreting these star signs so you tell me what the constellations look like.” 

Brian laughed as Liz put her pen to paper, joined by Ben and Freddie at the entranceway. “Star signs are horoscopes, Liz. Stars in the sky resembling people or animals or objects are constellations.” 

“My bad then.” she smiled at her friend. “Fire away.” 

“The first one then...” Ben repeated the date and time, having written them all down when he was in the tower. Freddie put his hand on Roger’s shoulder as the two watched. “Looks like a leaf to me.. a maple leaf.” the second sign was a little trickier; Brian made repeated motions with one of his hands. 

“Snakelike.” Freddie supplied, remembering the snake bracelet he owned. 

“Aha, a snake! The third one looks like a bug.” 

“Aw damn, I hate bugs!” Liz swore. Ben and the men smirked at each other. “What? Apart from that and my fear of heights I’m fine!” 

“Of course you are!” Roger gave her a playful look. “We all have something we’re afraid of!” 

“Oh you men!” Liz unhooked her radio, handing it to Ben. “I don’t think that I’ll need this where I’m going.” 

“Where are we going?” 

“To examine these pillars out here! Try to find one that looks like a maple leaf, a bug and a snake, then turn it on!” exasperated, Liz was thinking over her strategy when Ben found the bug, Brian found the snake, and Freddie found the leaf. All three pillar icons were switched on then they all heard a tremendous rumbling followed by the sound of rushing water. 

“The ship!” Freddie hightailed it to the dock followed by the others. The sunken ship was risen to above the level of the water and they were able to board it without a problem. Roger went to the stern, Freddie went to the bow, and Brian stood in the middle part with his hands on his hips, enjoying the breeze in the sunshine. 

“Damn, I’m hot!” Liz knotted her shirt to just under her bust so her stomach was exposed, giving Ben a good eyeful as she went into the captain’s cabin of the ship-or where it was supposed to be anyway. 

“Here goes,” Ben leaned over her shoulder as he watched the flyby. “a ship set into stone? Why is it all bent into sections like that? There’s a lot of island imagery around here.” 

“I hope it’s uneventful for you and you can find John all right.” 

“I’ll be able to, thanks, Ben. Don’t play pirates too hard.” she put her hand on the image and passed out. 

**

Liz opened up her eyes into a rather gray looking world. She was lying on the deck of a ship that looked like it had been broken in half and set crazily into stone. The bow section faced one way and the stern faced the other. The medic was standing on the stern section but she noticed a few pathways off both sides of the ship. 

“John?” she called, starting to walk around. She crossed over to the bow section of the ship and saw her boyfriend’s figure in the shadow. “John, babe!” 

John was lying on his side as Liz got down on her knees to administer to him. The bassist grumbled a little bit but eventually opened up his eyes as his girlfriend. “Liz! How did you get here?” 

“I had some help from the rest of the guys. How long have you been like this?” 

“I’ve been here about a day but I haven’t seen anything unusual. There isn’t another soul to be seen for miles away.” 

“Rather boring for you isn’t it? Still it’s nice and tranquil,” she told John what they had learned about the world so far, including the loss of control over their regular sleep patterns. “how about we have a bit of fun before we work on getting out of here?” 

“I’m game! What are you thinking?” Liz stood up, wiggled out of her shorts and top, threw them at him, then launched herself over the side of the ship into the water. John followed suit, leaving his outer clothes with hers and both had an enjoyable swim. The swim was followed by a making out session on the stern as they put their clothes back on. 

“Is that a lighthouse?” John noticed, pointing. Both of them entered, saw a padlock on the upper level and a key that was chained to the floor. Liz wanted to join both of them together but she had a suspicion. 

“I don’t think that’s the proper key, John. If it was then why would it be chained to the floor? It would be somewhere else. Everything has this backwards logic but it does make sense. We need to find a way to get rid of the water in the bottom level of the place.” 

“What’s over there?” the bassist followed some planking about 12 feet away from the stern to where an umbrella sat with three switches in the shade under it. The switches looked like little bells bolted down and as John watched he touched the right one. A little light came on and he heard a noise like a pump starting to work. 

Back at the lighthouse John didn’t see Liz anywhere but the water had disappeared from the lower level. Descending the stairs he found his girlfriend looking at a wooden chest that had a brass keyhole lock on it. 

“What do you think, hon?” 

“I think my brain’s fried,” Liz noticed a small slightly rusty spigot and before she could twist it open John had done it for her. Rushing water escaped from the spigot for about a minute and a half then stopped. The medic twisted it shut mechanically and ascended the stairs. “let’s see what other surprises the pumps can work.” 

“All righty then.” John followed her up, then showed her the pumps on the platform just off the ship. Liz turned the next one then they went back to the lighthouse. Water had filled up back to just below the walkway of the building, making the chest float and it was right next to the key. 

“Great!” Liz unlocked the chest which revealed another key. John was taller so she handed it to him and he unlocked the trapdoor to get up into the top of the lighthouse. 

“What’s up here?” John grabbed Liz’s hands and helped pull her up through the hole. Both of them saw a battery pack with no light on and an old hand crank generator. 

“I see. There’s no hydroelectric power here-”

“There was when I found Freddie in another world.” 

“so we need to hand crank and generate some electricity.” John seized the handle and gave it several turns. “We should be fast about whatever we do as this power won’t last forever.” 

“Hang on. I noticed a platform going up the side of the rock I want to look at.” ever intrepid, Liz went ahead of John and ascending up the platform she found herself on top of the rocky island and saw a telescope. Intrigued, she swung the telescope around looking for anything to pique her interest. All that came to her eyes was a blinking light on top of the lighthouse to indicate that they had power for a limited time. Liz noted the setting on the telescope-135 degrees. 

Back down to there John was waiting for her, Liz joined up with him and they descended down a tunnel, coming to a heavily locked metal door. John pushed the switch and it slid open with a pneumatic hiss. The couple’s jaws fell open at the beauty of the room but John was less than impressed, thinking that the occupant was trying to compensate for something. 

“This person is a real twit,” he remarked, throwing a pillow sham at Liz. “snobby.” 

“Most of them with taste like this are,” she agreed, throwing it back. “there’s no personal touches anywhere,” Liz slid open a dresser drawer. “substance abuse problems seems like a common thing.” 

“Come on, let’s go.” John took Liz’s hand, steering her out of the room. “We need to hurry this up before the power dies.” 

“Right.” down another tunnel, another room, which was far more primitive than the first one. No opulence; a device on top of a dresser attracted Liz’s attention. She pressed a button, a rose appeared, but she slid the slider bar at the bottom and the rose mutated into a skull. 

“This person is sick!” Liz reeled back. “Let’s go, John!” 

“We won’t find anything of interest here.” just then the lights went out. “Well shit! Come on, John, let’s fire up the generator again.” 

A brief visit to the lighthouse later, John and Liz went into the tunnels again. 

“What’s that?” John noticed a red bar on a recessed panel. He touched it and it slid open so he took Liz’s hand and guided her inside the newly discovered corridor. 

“Well look at that!” Liz waved her arms a little bit as she saw an underwater room where the marine life swam around aimlessly. She tapped on the glass as a jellyfish sluggishly floated by at the same time John saw a large compass on the floor. “This is like visiting the New England aquarium, John. Remember that?”

“I do,” he said absently, examining the compass. “look at this.” 

“Wow.” 

“Have you seen anything around here with any kind of compass degrees or any indication?” 

“The telescope up top. I had it on the lighthouse and the degrees were 135. Would that help at all?” 

“Let me see here...” John did some quick calculations and pushed down the 12th button from north. A new brightness lit up the interior. Confused, the two of them left the corridor then tried to go into the ship but it was flooded. John went and turned on the left pump. Once the water was drained out of the corridor the couple went down into the room, following the stairs into a small room. 

A mahogany table was all to see until John touched it and the book popped right out of the fabric of the table in a bizarre morph. Liz shook her head, still damp from her swim, John picked up the book, opened it up, then glanced at his girlfriend. 

“Ready?” he locked hands with her then she steered him to put their hands on the spinning picture of the library ceiling. 

**

Both John and Liz appeared together on the library room floor, startling Ben and Brian who had been examining the books on the shelf. Freddie had been reading about the world that he was on, Roger had been doing the same, then they all glanced up to see their two friends had arrived back. 

“Liz! John!” Freddie was the first one to greet them. John coughed a few times and opened up his eyes, happy to see his friends were surrounding him and welcoming them back. The bassist looked over at Liz who wasn’t moving at all. 

“What’s going on with her?” he was immediately alarmed. 

“It takes awhile for her to wake up-we figure the constant traveling was too much for her.” Roger supplied. 

“So how long do we wait?” 

“Give it half an hour or so,” Ben answered. “I think we have all the secrets decoded on this island.” he engaged the others in a long conversation about the island and all of its mysteries.

“So I guess the pirates and everything were just a part of the colorful tapestry then,” Roger was saying as John propped up Liz, concerned about how long she had been out for. He checked her pulse which was normal then started to coax her to wake up. 

“Come on Liz, time to wake up.” 

“Starting a cheering section to roust her out then?” Freddie picked up her other hand. 

“Guys now I’m worried. It’s getting really hard to wake her up. I think overdoing it in this world put her in a coma.” Brian gave his input. 

“My god she probably won’t wake up now.” 

“Roger!” Ben scolded. “She has been in a coma before and managed to beat it!” 

“How do you know about that?” John inquired. 

“Yeah, how?” Freddie. 

Ben heaved a sigh. “I think she and I have a spiritual connection, guys. I dreamt that she was in a coma and later on when I wrote to her she confirmed it.” 

“Interesting,” Brian mused. “come on Liz, it’s time to wake up.” 

“Guys, I don’t think she can.” 

“What do you mean by that, Freddie? Of course she can! Wake up, Liz!” John was sounding a bit panicked now. 

“Liz…..” 

**

“How long has it been now?” Roger’s voice sounded. Liz saw only blackness and realized that her eyes were firmly closed. How did she feel? She took a mental stock of herself, noting that she felt just fine. If Roger was asking how long it had been than someone was probably sick, she reasoned, not thinking of herself, just someone else. 

“Almost four hours,” something cool was put on Liz’s forehead. “I just walked into this room and she was lying on the floor beside a few books. Maybe she overexerted herself yesterday with all the fun we were having.” 

“Nah Freddie, Liz knows her limits. Something had to have happened. Asthma attack?” 

“Well, I suppose her medicine could have made her conk out but not on the floor. Besides we were out and she usually leaves us a note before she becomes incapacitated due to her Benadryl.” John reported. Liz realized that they were talking about her and how long she had been unconscious. She wasn’t personally aware that she’d fainted but there were a lot of questions now that obviously had to be answered. 

“She can beat this,” Ben encouraged the others. “I had a dream once where she was in a coma and we talked to each other. I have no idea if this was true or not but she did end up coming out of it.” 

“She was in a coma,” the medic could imagine Roger looking a bit skeptical. “she never told us you had a dream about it.” 

“She didn’t? I wrote to her about it and she never really alluded to it in her letters. There was a lot to tell anyway.” 

“True enough,” Brian allowed. “she’ll wake up in time. Roger says her pulse and her color is excellent.” 

Silence followed until Liz couldn’t take it anymore and opened up her eyes. Freddie and Roger were sitting on the couch opposite her, Brian was sitting at the piano but not playing it, John was right beside her sitting on an ottoman he’d dragged over. Ben was at the back of the couch wondering what he could do next when his wandering blue gaze met her gray eyes. 

A smile lighted up his face as he saw her. “Well, look who’s awake!” 

“That’s right,” her voice was rusty but it smoothed out in a minute. “am I in Oz?”

“Yes, here’s the Cowardly Lion!” Freddie teased, pulling at Roger’s hair gently. “Tin Man’s over there!” he pointed out Brian. 

“This makes John the Scarecrow!” Liz’s sharp wit kicked in, happily greeting her boyfriend with a kiss. “Ben’s the wizard!” 

“So what happened to you, Liz?” the real estate agent asked. “Did you get hit, have a reaction to something, what?”

“That I don’t know,” she paused. “I was examining this white book with leather binding and edging when I opened it and I saw the picture which seemed to move. I touched it and that’s all I remember.. I had such strange dreams..” 

“Like what?”

“I’ll tell you later, darling,” Liz meant to confide in John in secrecy. “I can’t make head or tail out of it.” 

“Well, it’s past suppertime and I think you’re hungry!” Freddie gave her a hand up. “Come on and after dinner you and I must have a piano lesson.” 

“Sounds good!” 

The medic had supper and chatted away with the others. As she was going upstairs to bed she saw Ben and Roger talking on the landing about her. Both of them looked serious so she leaned in a bit to eavesdrop shamelessly. 

“She seems really confused as to what happened to her.” 

“Join the club. She’s not prone to any kind of fits so we can discount that. I think we’d just write this one off as one of those rare occurrences and let it go.” 

“Do you think she’s going to be more prone to this sort of thing in the future?” Ben furrowed his brows in concern for his friend. She was the one who had made him feel the most welcome as a friend of the band and didn’t want to lose her for any reason. “Should we worry?”

“No we shouldn’t,” Roger was confident. “we don’t want to even suspect she could be losing her marbles because she isn’t. Just let it fly and we will have fun tomorrow. What are we doing exactly?” 

Ben launched into a historical landmark diatribe that Liz didn’t need to stick around for. She changed into her nightgown and got into bed beside John where she told him everything, lying her head on his chest. He stroked her hair and listened, not once interrupting her. Liz narrated the dream the best she could, being as clear as possible and once she was done John had the picture in his mind. 

“You know Liz I think you have a bit of a heroine complex,” he pulled affectionately at her hair. “you like to jump in and save the day. Even in your dreams. Yet even in your dreams you reach your limit and you are forced to rely on others. Dreams aren’t messages from the subconscious; they’re just random thoughts in your mind. They don’t mean anything.” 

“True. I hated learning about Freud in school.” 

“Me too. It’s like your mind is giving you a TV when you’re asleep. It’s nothing to worry about. Besides you did save the day anyway-getting us all back to the island like that.” 

“I did, didn’t I?” she kissed John. “Thanks babe. I feel better now.” 

“Anytime.” the bassist watched her fall asleep.   
THE END


End file.
